The 36-year-old Maldonado holds a 24-0 record as a professional
boxer while also piecing together a meaningful MMA career,
including an 11-fight stint in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
He has graced a number of high-profile training camps with his
presence, from
Team Nogueira to
American Top Team, and has secured 16 of his 22 victories by
knockout, technical knockout or submission. Maldonado last fought
at UFC Fight Night “Belfort vs. Henderson 3” on Nov. 7, when he
wound up on the wrong side of a unanimous decision against Corey
Anderson in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The Emelianenko-Maldonado showdown is but one
outside-the-major-MMA-bubble matchup worth monitoring during the
month of June. Here are nine more:

Harrison will put his perfect 12-0 record and
Titan Fighting Championships featherweight title on the line
when he faces Ribeiro in the Titan 39 co-main event. A Ring of
Combat veteran, the 28-year-old Harrison has long been viewed
as one of MMA’s more promising prospects at 145 pounds. He captured
the Titan featherweight crown with a five-round unanimous decision
over Kurt
Holobaugh in July 2015 and has since defended it twice in
back-to-back wins against Desmond
Green and Steven
Siler. Though he has not competed in almost two years, American
Top Team’s Ribeiro, 27, will enter the cage on a four-fight winning
streak.

A crack at the CES MMA lightweight title may hang in the balance
when Makashvili confronts Sanders in an impromptu co-main event.
Makashvili, who will serve as a short-notice replacement for
injured 155-pound champion Luis Felix,
has not fought since a three-bout stay in the Ultimate Fighting
Championship ended with a draw against Damon
Jackson at UFC on Fox 18 in January. The 27-year-old Georgian
has already held organizational gold inside the Cage Fury Fighting
Championships promotion. A Bellator MMA alum, Sanders will step
into the cage on the strength of a three-fight winning streak.

The 38-year-old Takaya has rattled off four straight victories and
looks to continue his late-career resurgence at Malegarie’s
expense. A former Dream
champion and
World Extreme Cagefighting veteran, Takaya has battled and
beaten many of his contemporaries over the years, having defeated
Takeshi
Inoue, Kazuyuki
Miyata, Hatsu Hioki
and reigning One
Championship titleholder Bibiano
Fernandes during a career that dates back to 2003. Malegarie,
who has never been finished in 28 pro bouts, has gone 7-1 across
his past eight outings, a split decision loss to Joaquim
Silva at UFC 191 the lone setback.

Volkov has a difficult task ahead of him, as he prepares to defend
the M-1 Global
heavyweight championship for the first time. “Drago” on Feb. 19
rebounded from consecutive Bellator losses to Cheick Kongo
and Tony
Johnson by submitting Denis
Smoldarev with a third-round triangle choke to claim the vacant
M-1 belt. Twenty of the 27-year-old Voklov’s 25 career wins have
resulted in finishes. Vegh, like Volkov, is a former Bellator
champion. The well-traveled American Top Team rep will enter the
match on the heels of back-to-back split decision defeats to
Goran
Reljic and Emanuel
Newton.

Perhaps Barcelos will be the next fighter to use the
Resurrection Fighting Alliance as a springboard to bigger and
better things. Until then, he has business to tend to, as the
29-year-old Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt will risk the
featherweight title against Moffett in the RFA 39 headliner.
Barcelos has been on the sidelines since claiming the 145-pound
championship in a lopsided unanimous decision over Ricky
Musgrave in August. He boasts six finishes among his nine pro
victories, five of them having occurred inside the first round. On
a four-fight tear, the once-beaten Moffett last fought on Feb. 6,
when he submitted Caleb
Williams with a second-round arm-triangle choke at a Hoosier
Fight Club event in Michigan City, Indiana.

Rhodes and Cleveland have their sights set on the same prize: the
vacant
Victory Fighting Championship middleweight throne. Spawned by
the Milwaukee-based
Roufusport camp, Rhodes has quietly put together
back-to-back-to-back wins since being released by the UFC in
December 2014. Still just 26 years old, the Duke Roufus protégé has
plenty of time to fulfill his considerable promise. Cleveland, 27,
has won four in a row. He last appeared at Victory 49 on April 1,
when he delivered a 36-second knockout against Brian
Houston.

Vazquez raised eyebrows in February, when he submitted the highly
touted RicardoLucas
Ramos for the vacant
Legacy Fighting Championship bantamweight crown. It was easily
the 22-year-old’s most significant victory to date. Vazquez now
takes his turn as the hunted, as he puts his 135-pound championship
on the line against Peterson in the Legacy 56 headliner. Octagon
MMA’s Peterson has the wind from a five-fight winning streak at his
back. He has been finished just once -- George
Pacurariu knocked him out in April 2013 -- in his 17-fight
career.

Ebersole has accumulated plenty of miles during a professional MMA
career that encompasses 70 pro bouts -- a fact which led to his
decision to retire in 2015. It seems the call to competition was
too great a temptation to overcome. Ebersole will come out of
retirement to sling leather with Kennedy at a Hex Fighting Series
event in Australia, the country where “Bad Boy” enjoyed his
greatest success as a mixed martial artist. Kennedy was released
following a failed two-fight stint in the UFC, where he bowed to
Richard
Walsh and Peter
Sobotta.

Kitaoka has kept the Deep lightweight
championship under wraps for more than three years. That prize will
be up for grabs when the Japanese powerhouse meets the fast-rising
Shimoishi at Korakuen Hall. Kitaoka, 36, saw his run of five
straight wins grind to a halt in November, when he fell prey to
Kazuki
Tokudome in a failed bid to capture Pancrase
gold at 155 pounds. Nevertheless, he has filled his extensive
resume -- his career stretches all the way back to October 2000 --
with victories over a number of high-quality opponents: Carlos
Condit, Takanori
Gomi, Kurt
Pellegrino, Paul Daley and
Katsunori
Kikuno, to name but a few. The 28-year-old Shimoishi has won
each of his past six bouts.